Why Marry?

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre | 2004 | 700+ words | Copyright

Why Marry? (1917), a comedy by Jesse Lynch Williams. [Astor Theatre, 120 perf.; Pulitzer Prize.] Ernest Hamilton ( Shelley Hull) is a brilliant young scientist who does not yet earn enough money to consider marrying. His fiancée is his lab technician, Helen ( Estelle Winwood), who is a modern woman, willing to wed and work, but she fears marriage would distract Ernest from his research. Goaded on by her unhappily married brother, John ( Edmund Breese), Helen therefore decides simply to live with Ernest—with no commitments. This does not sit well with her family, especially Uncle Everett ( Nat Goodwin), although Everett's own wife is in Reno getting a divorce. But after his wife agrees to return to him, Everett convinces the young lovers that “bad as marriage is, until we reform it, it is the best we have to offer you.” This witty, epigrammatic comedy, which many contemporary critics perceived as America's answer to G. B. Shaw, was the first play to win a Pulitzer Prize. Williams wrote a follow‐up called Why Not? (1922) about switching mates.

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Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Why Marry?." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 28 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Why Marry?." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 28, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-WhyMarry.html

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Why Marry?." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-WhyMarry.html

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